QUEERLY BELOVED

Hetero woman: Feminism turned me into lesbian

'I'd had a very happy marriage and a very good relationship with men'

Published: 07/01/2007 at 1:00 AM

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border=0>Prof. Sue Wilkinson

A 53-year-old university professor and campaigner for legalized same-sex marriage in the UK said she was once a married “happy heterosexual” who had no doubts about her sexual orientation, but political activity and involvement in feminist causes “changed” her into a lesbian.

“I’d had a very happy marriage and a very good relationship with men,” she said. “My husband took it very badly.”

In 2003, the two women married in Vancouver, Canada, where same-sex unions are legal. A change in UK law in 2005 recognized their Canadian ceremony as a civil union, but not marriage.

Wilkinson and Kitzinger sued, arguing that foreign heterosexual unions would automatically be recognized as valid marriages, and the law, as constituted, was “a breach of our rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.”